As the Easter bunny hopped around the world on Sunday, Pudgy Penguins’ CEO Luca Netz waddled onto the front page of Forbes alongside a jab by the mainstream media company at the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
On Sunday, the entire Web3 space joined the huddle to congratulate the Pudgy Penguins community and Luca Netz after Forbes shared a new feature piece on the ‘Penguin Pilot’ titled ‘Plush with Crypto,’ highlighting the project’s rise and its recent toy deal with Walmart.
“The biggest narrative this cycle will be consumer crypto,” Netz tweeted following the article’s publication. “You just don’t know it yet.”
Following Forbes post, Apes, Penguins, and the rest of the Web3 world took to Twitter to congratulate Netz on pushing the space forward.
“This is a W for the entire web3 space,” Pudgy Penguin BobbyDigital tweeted. “No NFT company grew more during the crypto bear market than Pudgy Penguins. Congrats to @LucaNetz and all the pudgy holders.”
While everyone in the Web3 world applauded Netz and the Pudgy Penguins community, many BAYC members couldn’t help but focus on Forbes’ “Move over Bored Apes” and “Forget Bored Apes” jabs in the tweet and graphic.
“Anyone else notice it Mentions Bored Apes twice and doesn’t mention PUDGY PENGUINS once and n this cover,” BAYC member FutureForbesX tweeted. “Thank You @Forbes.”
While some saw the BAYC being mentioned by Forbes in an article about Pudgy Penguins as a win for the club, others were concerned by what this post says about the state of the swamp.
“Congrats to my man Luca this is a big dub it's alarming that even Forbes is cooking bored apes rn,” BAYC member KingBlackBored tweeted. “I am seeing lil to no top of funnel marketing strategy out of them instead unwisely relying on community run "made by apes" to spread the IP to normie land not gonna get it done.”
While KingBlackBored called for more top of funnel marketing from Yuga Labs, the Co-Founder of a BAYC inspired clothing brand, Bored of Directors, Carson Turner, wrote that he believes Yuga Labs’ approach has empowered holders to build on their own.
“BAYC IP empowered the “Bored of Directors” to sell our merch across the world with astonishing demand making it a massive IP success for the actual #NFT holder not the company,” he wrote. “Study.”
As everyone around the swamp shared their two Sats about the “Move Over Bored Apes” comments, the Club’s Creative Director Jeff Nicholas suggested that people will look back and laugh at the media outlet’s jabs at Apes in the future.
“This kind of pvp play in the press is a story as old as time,” he tweeted. “Headlines gonna do what headlines gonna do. I’m sure counting Bored Apes out is gonna age well for Forbes.”
The Bored Ape Gazette will continue to follow Nicholas and the entire Yuga Labs team’s work to turn these jabs into jokes. Stay tuned for updates!